Category Archives: Crazy Euopean People

Today we had one of the few Sunday Shopping days in which the city is opened on a holy Sunday. Last year I actually wrote about this so you can find in this article more information about this stupid situation here in Germany and why there are barely any people around on Sundays. This Sunday was also a bit special as we had the yearly Duck Race in the city once again (here the article about it from 2015), we had some Street Food gathering going on and a Classic Car Meeting as well.

All the ducks shortly before the start

This year we skipped the Duck Race and I only took few pictures before the start. It is not because we have no interest in watching it but we have a little puppy who needs to get out around 3pm each day and that is also the time the race would start. We had surprisingly good weather with a lot of sunshine unlike the entire last week which had only storms for us. I would love to tell more about the Street Food gathering but we tried to not get too close to it as it would have certainly ruined our wallets and give us some extra pounds. The only part where my wife was getting weak was the stand with Japanese styled Crêpes but thankfully the waiting line was so absurdly long that she gave up on it.

The Japanese stand

For me the highlight was the Classic Car meeting. The local club has several meetings each year but somehow I have never visited one. Always something happened such as holidays, too much rain or simply no energy to leave the apartment. It was really interesting to see cars from the last 70 years gathered here. As we are in Germany there were mostly only German brands such as Opel, Mercedes, BMW, Audi (Auto Union) and so on but there were also few US brands, British and French. My brother always wants to purchase a classic car but in the end it is just too much work to maintain it properly and you need also a safe garage as those cars can be really expensive.

Lovely old Mercedes

This Sunday was finally a day to relax a bit. Funny enough even though we had the Sunday Shopping day we only went around the city to watch all the interesting events rather than going to any shop at all. Tomorrow and the day after we have some big things happening but more about it in next weeks blog post/ some hints on Social Media the next days.

Old Toy

Opel

Ford

Audi

Volvo

City Pond

Have you visited a Classic Car meeting?

Be sure to follow me also on Facebook and on Twitter as I will post there occasionally pictures which do not find their way into my blog posts. Furthermore there is also my Instagram account in which from time to time some pictures and short videos might pop up.

Now to the second installment of our holidays in Finland. I can’t say really why but even though Helsinki plays such big part of this trip I only have one single pictures from it! It might be because I lived there way too long or took last time enough pictures? No idea. So after one week at my parents cottage we drove to Helsinki to meet up with a lot of friends. With a lot of friends I mean really a lot to visit in just two days. Especially on our second day we had a tough schedule in which we met up with someone every hour from 10am till 6pm.

The second day we were supposed to meet with our Chinese friends at Ikea at 10am and then eat there later lunch. Yes, it did not work out that way. When we left at 9am and were half way to Ikea we got a call that they were just preparing once again beef noodles for breakfast. Yep, we had to reschedule everything, meet with other friends first and then went to Ikea to eat lunch on our own. Much later our friends arrived so we had coffee and cake with them. The rest of our Helsinki time was spent on meeting with other friends, checking on our old apartment and rushing on the third day to get early enough to our next location.

Nathan is not too sure what to think about this

The third day which was day number 10 in Finland we drove to Moominworld. From Helsinki it is a bit less than a three-hour drive as you will get stuck behind slow cars all the time. What to say about Moominworld? It is just a wonderful place for little children and also for adults. The amount of Japanese tourists was rather interesting but then again Moomins are still a big thing in Japan and they just opened/ are about to open a Moomin Theme Park over there. We had perfect (too hot) weather and explored the whole theme park for several hours. Everywhere you can find buildings from the different inhabitants of the Moomin Valley and character are walking around and interact with the visitors. We really enjoyed our time there even though Nathan was not too fond of meeting some of the character, especially Stinky and The Groke.

Brahehus

After Moominworld we drove to Turku Harbour to take our ferry back to Sweden. Well the drive through Sweden was nothing special once again but we had a longer stop at the Brahehus at Lake Vättern. Brahehus is an old ruin of a castle which sits about 270m above sea level. From there you have a stunning view over the countryside and especially over the Lake Vättern. The lake itself is so big that you can’t even see the other side. The entire length around the shore of that lake is around 300km, so it is a pretty big lake. At the castle we enjoyed the view and Nathan tried his best in boulder climbing but his mom and grandma were not so fond of it as it was rather high up there. After that trip we drove once again to my Uncle for a night and then left early morning to the second long drive through Danmark and back to Germany. With this our Finland holidays ended and normal working life got back immediately as we started work the same evening we arrived home.

Moominmamma

Inside of the Moominhouse

Nathan with Moominpappa’s hat and walking stick

Stinky!!

Inside Hemulen’s house

Moominpappa’s boat

Nathalie staring at water

Actually no idea who this is…

Snufkin with Nathan

Nathan in prison

Thingumy and Bob

Alicia and the Witch

A Hattifattener

Nathan kissing a tree

The Groke!

Adventures in the wilderness

Performance

Moominpappa

On the ferry to Sweden

View from the Brahehus

Old Window

Just look at the view!

Have you heard about Moomins before?

Be sure to follow me also on Facebook and on Twitter as I will post there occasionally pictures which do not find their way into my blog posts. Furthermore there is also my Instagram account in which from time to time some pictures and short videos might pop up.

It has been a rather long time since my last blog post and yeah, I’ve been really lazy it seems! But fear no longer as I am back now with some spare time on my hands just for this blog. The main reason for my hiatus was actually our holiday in China which lasted nearly a month and also few exhausting weeks battling with taxations once again. Right now we even have the joy of surviving dear Chinese mother-in-law as she arrived yesterday.

MIL’s dancing group

This first blog post after such long break will be rather uneventful as it will be just about the first days in China during our holidays there. Unbelievable but true this trip has been our first real holidays in nearly two years! I guess you can imagine how exhausted you can get with work without any holidays for such long time so we were very excited. However as we are running our own business work did not stop with us going to holidays and thus we had few working days even in China.

Finally good food!

So what you do after such long time without holidays once you arrive in Xi’an? Go eat! The first few days we went to each one of our favorite restaurants, it just felt so good to be able to eat those wonderful dishes again. Well, we loved it but my father was not that fond about Liangpi 凉皮 (cold noodles) and few other dishes we devoured. However we usually found a good compromise and he got something he liked each day, in fact he stated later that this holiday to China was the best of them all as he really liked the food during the entire trip. Besides eating we went for many walks around the neighbourhood and I could not help myself to take few more pictures of the area and building where my in-laws live. My father feels always reminded how Germany looked like after WWII when going through that area in the city center of Xi’an. It appears that standard maintenance is unheard of in parts of China.

Just to the left there you shall find the entrance to my in-laws building

The first week in China was more like getting used to having holidays again and doing few sightseeing tours around the city. Even though we had started there our holidays it did not really feel real. Xi’an had changed once again a lot in just two years and just had a different “vibe” compared to before. My father liked this new feeling to the city especially as car drivers suddenly stop for pedestrians (scooter riders will still try to kill you) and that everything is much cleaner now as there are hundreds of people going around each day collecting trash in the city center with a bucket and pick-up tools.

What a boring blog post!

Xi’an West Gate

Lovely Lianpi

Lovely Roujiamo

Outside of the South Gate

moat of the city wall

Such a beautful place!

What was the longest period you went without holidays?

Be sure to follow me also on Facebook and on Twitter as I will post there occasionally pictures which do not find their way into my blog posts. Furthermore there is also my Instagram account in which from time to time some pictures and short videos might pop up.